Unqualified would not really be the term to use here, as the driver Roger Rodas, was a professional driver previous raced Porsche Cup cars and was most recent working with Ford Mustang Boss for the Pirelli World Challenge. Both Paul and Roger were not amateur drivers. I agree with JohnC in the fact that the CGT is a one of the hardest cars to drive. Have not driven one personally but seen many times on track days and talked to drivers. The car is a pure bred race car that meets DOT requirements, so it's street legal. JohnC, do you think that the "snap" oversteer associated with the CGT played a part of the accident? Either way two men lost their lives and I will miss PW. May he RIP.

They made the decision to play boy racer in a public area (an office park), putting who knows how many others at risk. A responsible, qualified, professional driver would not have made that decision in that car in that place. The office park was posted for 45 MPH. Given the picture of the wreckage I think one can easily make the terminal velocity well into the triple digits.

If the Earth were flat, cats would have pushed everything off of it by now.

They made the decision to play boy racer in a public area (an office park), putting who knows how many others at risk. A responsible, qualified, professional driver would not have made that decision in that car in that place. The office park was posted for 45 MPH. Given the picture of the wreckage I think one can easily make the terminal velocity well into the triple digits.

A responsible, qualified, professional driver would not have made that decision in that car in that place

Oh look, yet another insight from an armchair "expert of human behavior"...No "qualification" will provide a 100% guarantee against making a "judgement error". Doesn't matter what type of "certification" you have and how many hours of "experience" you have. Here is one perfect proof of that. And here is the other. And there are 100's more, in almost every professional field.

People make mistakes and they WILL continue making it (until all of their tasks will be replaced by robots) and heavily berating them in public for that (especially the dead ones) won't quite make it easier for their relatives and is not quite a socially acceptable behavior in most civilized societies. In other words, "De mortuis nihil nisi bonum".

Last edited by JohnC on Sun Dec 01, 2013 8:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

My subscription allows you people to exist on this site and makes me a better human being than you'll ever be

Oh look, yet another insight from an armchair "expert of human behavior"...No "qualification" will provide a 100% guarantee against making a "judgement error". Doesn't matter what type of "certification" you have and how many hours of "experience" you have. Here is one perfect proof of that. And here is the other. And there are 100's more, in almost every professional field.

People make mistakes and they will continue making it and heavily berating them for that (especially the dead ones) won't quite make it easier for their relatives and is not quite a socially acceptable behavior in most civilized societies. In other words, "De mortuis nihil nisi bonum".

The speed limit was 45mph. They were not going 45mph. They were breaking the law and putting others in danger as well. Your arguments don't even make any sense.

People will not learn from others mistakes if they continue to blindly ignore the reasons for the others mistakes.

And people from my links in previous post were not "breaking" the rules? LOLz, you people don't even attempt to read what I meant to write, you only understand what YOU want to understand... Screw this.

My subscription allows you people to exist on this site and makes me a better human being than you'll ever be

And people from my links in previous post were not "breaking" the rules? LOLz, you people don't even attempt to read what I meant to write, you only understand what YOU want to understand... Screw this.

The pilots breaking the rules on the Aeroflot Flight were idiots as well and it's sad that they killed many people in the process of breaking the rules.

Whatever argument you were trying to make failed.It's sad whenever people kill others due to negligence. Just because it happens doesn't make it less tragic and idiotic.

Seems to me the only real difference between this and the typical "Darwin Award" is that these guys were rich and famous.

Yes, it is tragic when anyone dies unexpectedly, and my condolences go to their families. However, it also appears that they died doing something monumentally stupid. We are fortunate they didn't take anyone else with them.

If you play with these kinds of toys at high speeds in unapproved areas, these things will happen. If it had been a track accident, it would have been tragic. Since it happened in an office park, it was tragic and stupid. It is hardly disrespectful to the dead to point out that their deaths should be a lesson to the living regarding the "stupid" aspect.

Speaking as someone who took a few young adult male risks involving vehicles, and thankfully has (so far) lived to see that some of them were unnecessary and stupid. Based on his posting history, I expect the Cap is speaking from similar perspective.

many years ago my boss used to give me a hard time for riding the motorcycle so fast.

he was certain I was destined to die on it if I didn't cool it. "I had 2 friends that crashed doing 80mph and the driveshaft (or a part of it) went through one of them." (both died) he then went on to say "you think they would have done that had they known it was going to happen?" ok, of course not. few want to die, my response was "sure but had they gotten away without crashing do you believe they would have slowed down or done it again?" and again the answer is of course they would have done it again.

I don't believe their is a person in this forum or on this planet that hasn't exceeded the speed limit on public roads, that hasn't rolled through a stop sign when you were supposed to come to a complete stop, someone that hasn't had a "close call" due to a moments distraction.....these things happen, mistakes are made, surviving them is a part of how we learn wisdom.

Paul & friend are dead and I'm not endorsing what they did but they died because they were behaving at the time like idiots which doesn't make them idiots. feel free to insult the action but without knowing not so much the individual.

If you play with these kinds of toys at high speeds in unapproved areas, these things will happen. If it had been a track accident, it would have been tragic. Since it happened in an office park, it was tragic and stupid. It is hardly disrespectful to the dead to point out that their deaths should be a lesson to the living regarding the "stupid" aspect.

these things can happen anywhere and with any kind of toy.... I was at the track when a Kawasaki's throttle cable broke leaving the rider coasting down the back straight, a GSXR hit him at 125mph, it was devastating. one dead the other broken, the rear rim on the Kawasaki was shattered into so many little pieces no more than a foot long. didn't know the riders.

Last edited by clone on Wed Jan 15, 2014 2:55 am, edited 4 times in total.

many years ago my boss used to give me a hard time for riding the motorcycle so fast.

he was certain I was destined to die on it if I didn't cool it. "I had 2 friends that crashed doing 80mph and the driveshaft (or a part of it) went through one of them." (both died) he then went on to say "you think they would have done that had they known it was going to happen?" ok, of course not. few want to die, my response was "sure but had they gotten away without crashing do you believe they would have slowed down or done it again?" and again the answer is of course they would have done it again.

I don't believe their is a person in this forum or on this planet that hasn't exceeded the speed limit on public roads, that hasn't rolled through a stop sign when you were supposed to come to a complete stop, someone that hasn't had a "close call" due to a moments distraction.....these things happen, mistakes are made, surviving them is a part of how we learn wisdom.

Paul & friend are dead and I'm not endorsing what they did but they died because they were behaving at the time like idiots which doesn't make them idiots. feel free to insult the action but without knowing not so much the individual.

If you play with these kinds of toys at high speeds in unapproved areas, these things will happen. If it had been a track accident, it would have been tragic. Since it happened in an office park, it was tragic and stupid. It is hardly disrespectful to the dead to point out that their deaths should be a lesson to the living regarding the "stupid" aspect.

these things can happen anywhere and with any kind of toy.... I was at the track when a Kawasaki's throttle cable broke leaving the rider coasting down the back straight, a GSXR hit him at 125mph, it was devastating. one dead the other broken, the rear rim on the Kawasaki was shattered into so many little pieces no more than a foot long. didn't know the riders.

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Speaking as someone who took a few young adult male risks involving vehicles, and thankfully has (so far) lived to see that some of them were unnecessary and stupid. Based on his posting history, I expect the Cap is speaking from similar perspective.

Yep. Jeep CJ-5 and 90 MPH is a Bad IdeaTM.

If the Earth were flat, cats would have pushed everything off of it by now.

What do facts matter? Captain Ned's first post clearly indicated he knew nothing about the incident and yet felt it necessary to disparage the dead anyway. Even worse is those backing up that type of behavior. Is it really that crazy to not belittle someone who died in an incident you know virtually nothing about? I don't think it is and frankly I'm disgusted it seems to be encouraged in this thread.

Ehhhhhh. Not defending anything or taking sides and I agree this is sad that it happened (especially due to his daughter being so young). However, I find it pretty hard to believe that they were doing the speed limit. I looked at quite a bit of photos and a video right after the crash when I first heard of this and the car was demolished prior to the fire completely destroying it. Also there were chunks of the curb missing and they went through a metal pole and then a small tree.

I had a not so similar accident in a rental a few years ago. I was being stupid and gassed it through an icy corner for fun. I would do this all the time in my car as I knew what it was capable of, why in the world I did it in a car I was unfamiliar with I still don't know. Anyways, it was a freeway exit that I was doing around 40 on so I hit the curb at about the same speed. Demolished the rim, front bumper and bent the axle. The curb had a small chunk out of it the size of a golf ball. Incredibly stupid decision, one of the reasons I don't do stuff like that anymore even in my own car.

I have a few other stories where I was a passenger (car club), but again they involve livestock/trees and totally different cars.

Now obviously I have no idea how their car would react in an accident, maybe it's supposed to split in two in a low speed crash.. I can't see a crash like that incapacitating both people either. I can't make a claim as to the actual speed but I think Captain Ned is right that it was a speed that far exceeded the limit. Maybe I'm wrong, not a crash expert and I don't know anything about the car they were driving. I've been in a handful of accidents as a passenger doing all sorts of speeds and I've never seen anything like what the video/pictures show. They were doing ~45 around a 15MPH corner and that happened?

Last edited by Convert on Mon Dec 02, 2013 11:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Tachyonic Karma: Future decisions traveling backwards in time to smite you now.

What do facts matter? Captain Ned's first post clearly indicated he knew nothing about the incident and yet felt it necessary to disparage the dead anyway.

Given the pictures of the wreckage, IMO it was reasonable to assume that excessive speed was involved. Low to moderate speed crashes usually don't result in infernos that burn the vehicle occupants' bodies beyond recognition. It now appears that this incident may have been a tragic exception.

slowriot wrote:

Even worse is those backing up that type of behavior. Is it really that crazy to not belittle someone who died in an incident you know virtually nothing about? I don't think it is and frankly I'm disgusted it seems to be encouraged in this thread.

There were other reports earlier today that they may have been drag racing. At this point nothing is certain.

Attempting to take a 15 MPH turn at 45 MPH in a car known for poor handling is still a pretty lousy judgement call. But if that version of events is confirmed I'll acknowledge that I went overboard in calling it a Darwin Award-worthy event.

Edit: OK, looks like they've ruled out the drag racing angle. But most of the news reports are still saying that witnesses claim the car was traveling at "high" speed.

Edit 2: From someone who knew the driver:

NY Daily News wrote:

“If I had to guess, I'd say [Roger] put his foot into it just to feel the power a little bit, and the car did something unnatural,” the race team source said. “It was a nervous, twitchy car, and I really believe Roger's last thought was: 'What just happened?’”

Well, there is a security camera showing the wreck...and it happens real fast.

Any crash looks fast from a fixed point...but I think it is credible to assume that they were going in excess of 45.

Background:

I went airborne in a 69 Ford at 120mph and lived.

So, I don't think anyone is a saint here. However, when you have a car that can accelerate from 20mph to 100mph in a couple of seconds...a 15mph curve is certainly not the issue.

My point:

I have a 16 year old son...what I point out is that a second of recklessness, a few seconds of thrills is not worth the irrevocable, the permanence, the consequences that cannot be avoided or rescinded.

Many of us have been in the situation...it seems like a lark at the time.

Yes, while you can affirm the life and the person...you have a responsibility to coldly judge the actions that lead to the incident.